Little more than three years ago, award-winning actress Jane Lapotaire had a glittering career, a wealth of theatre work and a diary full of engagements.

Little more than three years ago, award-winning actress Jane Lapotaire had a glittering career, a wealth of theatre work and a diary full of engagements.

Then, on January 11, 2000 she was about to give a Shakespeare masterclass at a Paris school when the world "went wavy" and she collapsed.

She had been struck down by a brain haemorrhage of the type, she was later told, that kills one in four. Brain haemorrhages are the third-biggest killer in the world after cancer and heart attacks.

After three operations and a month in intensive care, she was released from hospital with a titanium clip in her head which stemmed the bleed and little knowledge of what she could expect in terms of recovery.

The only visible signs of her illness were the scar on her head and her chopped hair. But the invisible damage was immeasurable.

By her own admission, the brain surgery left her a different person, someone who would rage incessantly at anyone who stood in her way, weep buckets out of frustration and whose energy levels were constantly at an all-time low.

"I seemed to have turned into the monster that I'd always dreaded that I was," she says now.

When you meet her, you wouldn't know initially that anything was wrong. But delve a little underneath the surface and the cracks begin to show. She is having a bad day, she's been overdoing it on the work front and is plagued with fatigue.

As she talks, she dissolves into tears more than once, her voice becoming a whisper as she tries to compose herself.

"Because we look the same, people expect us to behave the same," she says of victims of brain haemorrhages (aneurysms). "Even the hospitals tip you out with `no impairments' on your list. If you can walk and talk, you are considered OK.

"But the brain is left vulnerable to noise, physical jostling or any form of vocal and emotional harshness."

After brain surgery, all the negative aspects of her personality became greater, she reflects. And the part of her brain that was injured was the one which deals with what Jane calls, the "social niceties".

She fumed at friends, raged at her only son, Rowan, 30, and lost many people who had been close to her.

"Friend after friend went down the toilet. They couldn't cope with my antagonism, my querulousness, my irritability, all of which are symptoms of brain surgery. I could `irrit' for England.

"I had no idea that there was any problem with what I said, apart from people's reaction, until I started having neuro-psychology.

"Six months into neuro-psychology we started to call it HBOs (Heads Bitten Off). I had to keep a chart of how many heads I'd bitten off."

She still suffers headaches and chronic fatigue and tries to avoid crowded places or travel on the Underground.

Yet it wasn't until nine months after her surgery that she was told her symptoms were typical of victims of brain haemorrhage.

"The brain surgeon's job finishes at the operating room door. It was only through my friends in America that I found out that there was such a thing as a support group." Neuro-psychology has helped her understand her illness and watch out for the danger signs.

"All the things that used to terrify me I've now been taught to see as a warning sign that I call `Red Flag Territory'. Noises, head zaps, feeling dizzy, slurring my words and dragging my left foot are all warnings.

"I then have to go home, shut the door and stay quiet."

At 58, the star of the musical Piaf has, with difficulty, learned to have a more ordered, less hectic life. Jane's concentration has also returned. She has written Time Out Of Mind, which charts her illness and her painful road to recovery.

"The whole point of writing this book, apart from giving me something to do to stop me going completely round the twist, is that I want to give a voice to people who have suffered a similar experience and can't find the voice to describe it."

The book was undoubtedly a risky venture professionally because of the potential damage it may do to her acting career.

"I've been under a lot of public scrutiny which has made me very frightened, because on the one hand I want to be truthful about the state that I'm in, but on the other hand I don't want to put the kibosh on my acting career forever."

"I have lost four film jobs in a row," she admits. "My confidence is smashed." Walking helps her relax, as it releases the stress from her body. And she has tremendous support at home in Warwickshire from her partner Ger.

"There are so few people I feel at ease with now. I was made aware that it's no good being looked after by people, however kind, who don't love you."

Her publishers have asked her to write a novel and she is excited at the prospect.

"You really are looking at a complete miracle that I can talk and walk," she says. "My brain feels as if at last it is back inside my head."

* Time Out Of Mind, by Jane Lapotaire, is published by Virago at #16.99.